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On Friday evening W.A.G.E. (Working Artists and the Greater Economy) presented the results of its 2010 survey of payments received by artists who exhibited with nonprofit art institutions in New York City between 2005 and 2010. The survey found that 58% of artists who responded received “no form of payment.” The audience, including Artists Space director Stefan Kalmár, asked questions critical of the survey methodology, but did not refute the group’s findings. W.A.G.E. has partnered with Artists Space to explore the development of a self-regulatory model, mandating the implementation of a fee schedule within the institution. Presenter A.K. Burns explained one of the rationales for artists fees, “nonprofits get money from different sources for public education, and the artist is the educator. We are wondering why the artist isn’t being paid?” That artists should be remunerated for their cultural value in capital value is one of W.A.G.E.’s positions from its statement and one that remains controversial.

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In 2006, I launched a show called "The Show With Ze Frank." It was one of the most strange, exciting, difficult, and amazing things I have done so far. I think it is time to do something similar, what with the economy in the crapper and the election coming up. If Newt can do it, so can I. So can we.

Artists and curators pay increasingly more attention to the viewer. Polish performing and visual arts in recent years more often do not just treat the viewer as a passive recipient. Many projects are being developed in non-institutional spaces to take advantage of the context and to experiment with strategies of viewer reception. There is talk of a socially engaged art, community-based art, dialogic art, participatory and collaborative work – all being described as ‘relational practices’.

An on-going project on the possible relationships between art practices and the populist mediascape that connotes the current political zeitgeist of Europe...

«I think that the prospects in today’s Western Europe are rather unpleasant. All the governments in Western Europe are reacting to the crisis with extreme neoliberal formulas of adjustment. Zapatero has just passed a set of draconian measures and you know what is happening in Greece. In Germany the situation is also relatively unsustainable, and in England the relationship between Nick Clegg and David Cameron is quite feeble because there exist strong tendencies within the Liberal Democrats to reject the coalition agreement and the way it is implemented. So the situation is bad, and this all the more because the social democratic parties, which are the only viable alternative at the moment in Eastern as well as Western Europe, do not have any alternative plan. These conditions fuel extreme right-wing populism. If you don’t have an alternative to the system, people who feel a need for such an alternative move to extreme ideologies, wheter they are right-wing or left-wing. Take the example if France. There existed a classical discourse of opposition, which was that of the Communist Party and the red belts of the industrial cities. This world has disintegrated as a result of the tertiarization of the labour market. The outcome was a unique system of ower in which the social democrats and the more conservative forces did not differ very much from each other. The only political alternatives were to be found on the fringes of the left and right, yet it is the right fringe that has progressively expanded. Many former voters of the French Communist Party are today voter of Le Pen, a phenomenon thart is called gaucho-lepénisme. The reason is simple: if you want change in some way, the precise way om which that change is going to happen and its ideological framing become a seconday matter. And that is of course not only the situation in France. The chances for a left populism are today in Western Europe rather minimal. Populism is going to expand, but it will be a populism of the right.”

French media artist Maurice Benayoun is way ahead of today's economists. He long ago figured out that collective emotions trackable on the Web might be used to predict market ups and downs. Recent books like Animal Spirits: How Human Psychology Drives the Economy echo the notion that the market has become a histrionic arena that begs for regulatory controls, and there is at least one hedge fund that uses the analysis of mass tweets to make stock predictions. But Benayoun is no Wall Street gambler trying to game the system. He hopes his recent work will in fact aid and engage the Occupy Wall Street movement, which he says is still more potent in the U.S. than in Europe -- though not for long.

Contemporary art is not the first thing you might think about whenever Saudi Arabia is mentioned. But if you decide to look beyond the veil of political media and stereotypes you will be quite surprised at what you might discover.

While one might think it’s strange that Edge of Arabia has not staged an exhibition of this scale before in Saudi Arabia, they do have a track record of similarly grand exhibits in London, Venice, Dubai, Berlin and Istanbul. Part of the reason for the organization’s lack of Saudi exhibitions may be the fears of not being accepted by your average Saudi visitor who is more accustomed to oil paintings that portray horses and tents than the aesthetics of contemporary art. The day before the opening many of the artists in the Jeddah show attended a related symposium at the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and some of the uninformed questions that were asked during the sessions suggest there is some truth to the nonprofit’s concerns. But like all conversations, someone has to start, and that is exactly what this Edge of Arabia exhibition intended to do. The title says it all, We Need to Talk.

About the project

Starting a conversation about Capitalism is like walking up to a stranger and asking, “Can I talk to you about Jesus?”

The word “capitalism” is a red flag. And for good reason—pretty soon either some dude is talking your ear off about “The System” or aggressively confronting you about taxes. Ugh.

At the same time, capitalism is discussed every day using euphemisms like “jobs,” “job creation,” “the business climate,” and discussing whatever “crisis” is deemed relevant; a housing crisis, financial crisis, social security crisis, tax crisis, or fill- in-the blank crisis. But the whole is rarely a topic of frank discussion—much less alternatives or meaningful reform.

As a culture, we need the vision and boldness it takes to discuss the problem itself. The idea that “there is no alternative” to the way our world works takes away our ability to dream. As citizens we need the courage to begin these discussions on order to move on to new and better visions for the future.

radio interview: http://www.breakthruradio.com/#/post/?dj=thomas&post=787&blog=64&autoplay=1

This week on Art Uncovered I speak with Steve Lambert.

Steve makes objects and creates experiences that connect idealistic and radical ideas with everyday life. His projects help us imagine a better (dare I say utopian?) world, and allow us to ask, "well what if?"

Parce que l'art est l'affaire de tous, parce que la dimension culturelle est un enjeu crucial pour nos sociétés en transition, nous lançons un vaste mouvement participatif afin de mettre en débat la place de la culture et de l'art dans l'espace...

Because art is everybody's business, because the cultural dimension is a crucial issue for our societies in transition, we are launching an extensive participatory movement in order to debate the role of culture and art in space ...

Phantosmia — or, the sensation of smell without a physical stimulus — features seven unique scent sculptures that intend to christen a new art form.

It declares scent is it’s own form of art on par with sight and sound. Additionally, the exhibition exposes the bizarre nuances and anachronistic practices of the fragrance industry. And, like any good perfume, it promises a twist at the end. For the first time in fragrance history, a perfumer has published his formulae. However, the success of the show hinges on the industry’s willingness to take the bait and the audience’s desire to believe they’ve just smelled something groundbreaking.

With this kind of content, the Dillon Gallery and Laudamiel have had to solve a few technical issues. In order to communicate each of the seven distinct fragrances, the gallery erected six plastic tents for the scents labeled “At Your Own Risk,” “Fear,” “Fragile,” “The Last Virgin,” The Monkey and the Banana” and “The Whip and the Orchid.” The final scent,“Remembrance of Things Lost,” occupies the open space. Moreover, instructions and museum style explanations supplement the sculptures, helping to guide participants down new nasal pathways.